And wondering sees her Cowley's laurell'd shade
Tranported listen to the tuneful maid.
O may those nymphs, whose pleasing power she sings,
Still o'er their suppliant wave their fostering wings!
O long may Health and soft-eyed Peace impart
Bloom to her cheek, and rapture to her heart!
Beneath her roof the red-breast shall prolong,
Unchill'd by frost, his tributary song;
For her the lark shall wake the dappled morn,
And linnet twitter from the blossom'd thorn.
Sing on, sweet maid! thy Spenser smiles to see
Kind fancy shed her choicest gifts on thee,
And bids his Edwards, on the laurel spray
That shades his tomb, inscribe thy rural lay.
With lovely mien Eugenia now appears,
The muse's pupil from her tenderest years;
Improving tasks her peaceful hours beguile,
The sister arts on all her labors smile,
And, while the Nine their votary inspire,
"One dips the pencil, and one strings the lyre."
O may her life's clear current smoothly glide,
Unruffled by misfortune's boisterous tide!
So while the charmer leads her blameless days
With that content which she so well displays,
Her own Honoria we in her shall view,
And think her allegoric vision true.
Thus wandering wild among the golden grain
That fruitful floats on Bansted's airy plain,
Careless I sung, while summer's western gale
Breath'd health and fragrance thro' the dusky vale.
When from a neighbouring hawthorn, in whose shade
Conceal'd she lay, up-rose th' Aonian maid:
Pleas'd had she listen'd; and, with smiles, she cried,
"Cease, friendly swain! be this thy praise and pride,
That thou, of all the numerous tuneful throng,
First in our cause hast fram'd thy generous song.
"And ye, our sister choir! proceed to tread
The flowery paths of fame, by science led!
Employ by turns the needle and the pen,
And in their favorite studies rival men!
May all our sex your glorious track pursue,
And keep your bright example still in view!
These lasting beauties will in youth engage,
And smooth the wrinkles of declining age,
Secure to bloom, unconscious of decay,
When all Corinna's roses fade away.
For even when love's short triumph shall be o'er,
When youth shall please, and beauty charm no more,
When man shall cease to flatter; when the eye
Shall cease to sparkle, and the heart to sigh,
In that dread hour, when parent dust shall claim
The lifeless tribute of each kindred frame,
Even then shall wisdom for her chosen fair
The fragrant wreaths of virtuous fame prepare;
Those wreaths which florish in a happier clime,
Beyond the reach of envy and of time;
While here, th' immortalizing muse shall save
Your darling names from dark Oblivion's grave;
Those names the praise and wonder shall engage
Of every polish'd, wise, and virtuous age;
To latest times our annals shall adorn,
And save from folly thousands yet unborn."
TO A YOUNG LADY,
Written from Florence.
WHILST YOU, ATHENIA, with assiduous toil
Reap the rich fruits of learning's fertile soil;
Now search whate'er historic truth hath shewn,
And make the wealth of ages past your own;
Now crop the blossoms of poetic flow'rs,
And range delighted in the Muses' bow'rs;
Say, will the sweetest of her sex attend
To lines by friendship, not by flatt'ry penn'd;
To lines which tempt not worth with empty praise
But to still greater height that worth would raise;
To lines which dare against a world decide,
And stem the rage of custom's rapid tide?
Come then, ATHENIA, freely let us scan
The coward insults of that tyrant, man.
Self-prais'd, and grasping at despotic pow'r,
He looks on slav'ry as the female dow'r ;
To Nature's boon ascribes what force has giv'n,
And usurpation deems the gift of heav'n.
See the first-peopled East, where ASIA sheds
Her balmy spices o'er her fertile meads:
There, while th' ASSYRIAN stretch'd his wide domain
From distant Indus to the Cyprian main,
All nature's laws by impious force were broke ;
The female sex to slav'ry's galling yoke
Bow'd their fair necks: from social life confin❜d,
And all th' exertions of the enlighten'd mind,
Clos'd in a proud Seraglio's wanton bow'rs,
The dalliance of a tyrant's looser hours.
By kings' examples subjects form their lives,
Dependant satraps had their train of wives;
Proportion'd pow'r each petty tyrant craves,
And each poor female was the slave of slaves.
When PERSIA next o'erturn'd th' Assyrian throne,
Destroy'd her tyranny and fix'd its own;
The fair distress'd no milder treatment saw,
This was indeed th' unalterable law.
In future times, whatever masters came,
Tyrants were chang'd, but tyranny the same.
At length t' accumulate the female woes,
The grand impostor MAHOMET arose ;
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